WASHINGTON (TNND) — Iran’s leaders are openly antagonizing the Trump administration in the run-up to the November midterms as it prepares for the potential return to all-out war as President Donald Trump weighs his next steps in the conflict that has been stuck in a standstill for weeks.
Facing voters that are increasingly disgruntled about higher gas prices as a result of the war, Trump has said the U.S. would not conduct further strikes until after the midterms. But it’s unclear if that pause will hold or how much the outcome of the election is shaping the administration’s efforts to find an off-ramp to the war.
Tehran has sought to amplify the discontent in the U.S. by ramping up pressure on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and attacking the energy infrastructure of neighboring countries to push oil prices up even higher. While it has not resulted in Trump backing down from his demands in peace talks, GOP candidates have increasingly broken with the president and pushed him to find an off-ramp to the conflict to bring down gas and diesel prices.
High gas prices have become a significant political headache for Trump and congressional Republicans, amplifying voters’ concerns about the cost of living and shaping negative views on the outlook of the economy. Multiple polls have also found Americans do not approve of Trump’s handling of the war and do not believe it is worth the costs they are being forced to pay.
In Tehran’s view, the economic pressure has created an opening to exploit political vulnerabilities without escalating the war and given it leverage in stalled negotiations. Iran’s primary response to the U.S.-led military campaign since February has been to spread the damage across the region and expand the economic pressures on the global economy by threatening and targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“They seem to think that they understand our political dynamics in a way that perhaps other adversaries don’t, and are betting on the strategy that if they continue to interfere with shipping in the Gulf, or even just sporadically attack ships, that that will somehow keep gas prices high and maintain this domestic U.S. discontent over the state of the economy and people who don’t think the war is going well either,” said Javed Ali, a former counterterrorism official in the federal government and associate professor of practice at the University of Michigan.
While Iranian leaders have been publicly prodding the administration, they have also signaled they are preparing for another round of war after the elections with claims of new weapons stockpiles and threats to launch them toward targets beyond the Middle East.
The Pentagon and White House have also been planning potential options for how to move forward militarily, including a potential plan to use the “mother of all bombs,” a 21,600-pound weapon that is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
Several rounds of peace discussions have not yet led to many breakthroughs with Tehran refusing to negotiate restrictions on its uranium enrichment program until sanctions are lifted, a nonstarter for the White House. Iran has also refused to give up leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, while the U.S. and its allies are seeking a return to pre-war commercial shipping through the waterway.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S.’ primary objective is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as third-party countries have been trying to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.
“At the core of all of this is something very simple to understand: the United States will not support any deal that creates a pathway for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon. As long as President Trump is in office,” Rubio said.
Both sides of the conflict have claimed victory, with Tehran arguing it has survived the full military might of the United States while Trump has said Iran’s military and nuclear program have been wiped out after months of war. The competing claims of success have complicated efforts to find a diplomatic solution with both sides claiming the upper hand and refusing to abandon its key demands.
Trump has argued throughout the conflict that high gas prices are a small price to pay to ensure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon, though most voters have disagreed with that assessment in public opinion polling.
“By the way, somebody said, ‘you could leave right now.’ It’s true. We can leave right now. They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said during a rally in Kansas on Tuesday.
The upcoming midterms have also raised questions about how the administration will proceed if Republicans suffer significant losses. Some analysts think Trump may have more freedom to escalate without having concerns about electoral consequences despite the potential for more pushback from Congress.
Democrats have railed against the war since the outset and repeatedly put up resolutions limiting Trump’s power to continue it, all of which have failed with a lack of Republican support. That pressure is sure to escalate once the next Congress is sat if Democrats retake majorities in either chamber.
“The Iranians are trying to elicit a response to somehow affect perceptions of the war before the midterms,” Ali said. “Even if Trump decides to resume operations after the midterms, what will that campaign look like? Will it look like what we saw at the beginning of the conflict in late February into early to late March, where the U.S. was really pounding Iran?”